Craft, Create & Celebrate

What a treat! The ever creative Jill from Homemade by Jill is sharing her homemade play-dough recipe and tutorial.

Jill writes…

Homemade playdough is a great summer craft! It is easy enough for kids to help with, only takes about 10-15 minutes, and gives you comparable results to store-bought playdough. And the best part is … you probably have all the necessary materials on hand in your pantry.

Ingredients needed:

1 cup flour

1 cup warm water

2 teaspoons cream of tarter

1 teaspoon oil

1/4 cup salt

food coloring

When in this process you allow your kids to assist is entirely up to you. Younger children can mix dry ingredients, older kids can stir (supervised) at the stove top, and adding food coloring is fun for everyone. My son is under two, so he mainly helps me with the “playing” part. Please supervise your children and use caution with the stove and hot dough.

Combine all ingredients (except food coloring) in a medium-sized saucepan.

Divide into as many colors as you’d like to make. A single batch makes a good amount for four colors.

Add food coloring to the divided dough. Gel food coloring works quite well. I have not tried liquid food coloring.

Knead the food coloring into the dough. To protect your counter top, knead over wax paper. To protect your hands, wear plastic or rubber gloves, if you have them (you could also put the dough and food coloring inside a ziplock bag and have the kids squish it around inside).

When the dough is a consistent color, ball and set aside.

Repeat with the rest of your colors.

Put the dough in separate containers. Toddler-sized snack containers are a good size, and I have also wrapped the colors individually in wax paper and stored in zip-lock baggies.

Store in an airtight container until ready to use. It will stay soft for several weeks if stored airtight.

Hmm … I feel like I’m forgetting the most important step. Oh, that’s right – PLAY!

Thank you! Made this today with my 3 kids (8,6, and 4). They loved being able to help make it. The consistancy is so much better that store bought. My daughter had just got a fresh package of name brand stuff at school 2 days ago. When we opened it after making this recipe we realized and ours was softer and more workable and didn’t smell like the other stuff did. The kids just love it. So thank you again!

This was so super easy. It doesn’t smell like the playdoh from the store, but who cares??? My kid can destroy as much playdoh as he likes from now on. Seriously…..20 minutes from start to finish, with interruptions. Thank you for this recipe!!!

I made this and didn’t have cream of tartar, so I used baking powder instead. It did not turn out so well. It was a little gooey and stuck to our fingers. I opened it again a couple of days later, and it was REALLY gooey and sticky, so I threw it away. My 3 year old was upset! So, I will buy some cream of tartar and try it again

[…] you get the urge to make a bird nest, you might get an urge to make some playdough. So, you do. You make some playdough. And it’s messy, but it’s fun. Then…then you get an urge to make a bird nest. […]